[3] Khwaja Ghias, a
native of Western Tartary, left that country for India, where he had
some relations at the imperial court, who seemed likely to be able to
secure his advancement. He was a man of handsome person, and of good
education and address. He set out with his wife, a bullock, and a
small sum of money, which he realized by the sale of all his other
property. The wife, who was pregnant, rode upon the bullock, while he
walked by her side. Their stock of money had become exhausted, and
they had been three days without food in the great desert, when she
was taken in labour, and gave birth to a daughter. The mother could
hardly keep her seat on the bullock, and the father had become too
exhausted to afford her any support; and in their distress they
agreed to abandon the infant. They covered it over with leaves, and
towards evening pursued their journey. When they had gone on about a
mile, and had lost sight of the solitary shrub under which they had
left their child, the mother, in an agony of grief, threw herself
from the bullock upon the ground, exclaiming, 'My child, my child!'
Ghias could not resist this appeal.
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